Issues Involved in the Integration of Traditional and Nontraditional University Curricula

Abstract

Recently, under a grant from the American Council on Education, a team of evaluators recommended college-equivalency credit for each of the courses in the FLMI Insurance Education Program conducted by the Life Office Management Association. A recent article in this Journal suggested that enrollment in this program alone is on the order of forty thousand students, with reasonable expectations for substantial increases in the future.1 Following the evaluation committee's recommendations, LOMA conducted an extensive publicity campaign, prompting many in the life insurance community to inquire of local universities whether successfully-completed FLMI courses would be accepted for credit. Currently, the American College of Life Underwriters is a Candidate for Accreditation by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. The accreditation process is in progress at the time of this writing. Further, LOMA has given at least passing consideration to the establishment of a master's program in conjunction with an established university. Increasing numbers of inquiries are being received by colleges and universities with major programs in insurance education relative to the acceptability of credits from these programs toward attainment of a traditional university degree. It seems clear, from the foregoing, that nontraditional educational programs in insurance studies are expanding in scope and academic credibility. In connection with this expansion, the question of transferability of nontraditional credit to traditional programs has arisen. It is likely that insurance education may be one of the first major business subjects for which the issue of integrating traditional programs and nontraditional programs must be faced. Further, logic suggests that those institutions with insurance education programs and whose faculty constitutes the academic membership of ARIA will be among the first to have to meet the issues discussed herein. The purpose of this article is to provide a focus for discussion on this topic. At the outset, the authors would like to state that they believe nontraditional institutions have an important role to play in insurance education. They offer the insurance community a significant opportunity